Musical notes:
"Nobody Does It Better" was the first title song not to share its title with
that of the film, although it is included in the lyrics. The end credits use
a different arrangement of the song that opens with a Broadway style introduction.

The gunbarrel:
With the movie returning to the wider screen ratio the gunbarrel sequence was reshot.
This time Roger Moore is wearing a tuxedo (and all future films would
feature Bond in black tie rather than a basic suit) and of course
no hat. Moore's shooting motion is similar to in the sequence used
for the two previous films but seems slower and less dramatic.
The music is in the key of f minor (instead of e minor as most
of the other films) and features the last use of an electric guitar for quite
some time.

Using the title:
The title is not used anywhere in the movie.

The novel approach:
Fleming's "The Spy Who Loved Me" is an oddity. It is told
from the point of view of its heroine, Vivienne Michel, and indeed
it purports to be a true story with Ms Michel credited as co-author
with Fleming. The first part of the book tells Vivienne's life
story, with the rest a somewhat low key story in which Bond saves
Vivienne from some gangsters at a motel. Fleming clearly appreciated
that the novel was different and he made a condition when selling
the rights to the book - any film based on it could use the title
only, and not the story itself. This explains the change in the
way Fleming was credited for the film; each film was previously
preceeded with his name (for instance "Ian Fleming's The Man
With the Golden Gun"); for this film Roger Moore is credited
as playing Ian Fleming's James Bond. This style of credit would
become the standard during the 80s.
Possibly in view of the above, The Spy Who Loved Me became the
first Bond film to be novelised. This novelisation was written by
co-screenwriter Christopher Wood. The novel expands on the film in
a number of places, for instance giving some background to Jaws (his real
name is given as Zbigniew Krycsiwki and it is mentioned that he is unable
to talk, something which would be contradicted in Moonraker)
and there are some differences from the movie (for instance, Stromberg's first name is Sigmund
rather than Karl).

On Her Majesty's Secret Service:The Spy Who Loved Me is notable for confirming the real names of
both M and Q. General Gogol refers to M as "Miles" (Fleming's M
was named as Admiral Sir Miles Messervy in the novel of "The Man
With the Golden Gun"). Later Anya greets Q as Major Boothroyd, the
name of the Armourer played by Peter Burton in Dr No and how
Desmond Llewelyn was credited for From Russia With Love.
Although he is not strictly part of the Secret Service, the movie
introduces Frederick Gray, the Minister of Defence, who would appear
regularly until The Living Daylights.
Away from personnel, we learn that the Secret Service has a regional
operating base hidden within an Egyptian temple.
The movie is also interesting in that the movie shows us something
of the operation of the Russian counterpoint to the Secret Service, the KGB.
It is headed by General Alexis Gogol, who would also become a regular
character and who has his own counterpart to Moneypenny in the shape of Rubelvitch.
KGB agents are given coded designations, although there is no explanation as
to what "Triple X" may mean.

Locations: Somewhere under the North Norwegian Sea (from where HMS Ranger
is hijacked); London; Moscow; Berngarten, in the Austrian Alps; Faslane Naval
Base in Scotland; Stromberg's home, Atlantis (positioned somewhere off Sardinia); Egypt
(Cairo, the Giza pyramids, the ruins at Karnak, somewhere along the Nile and
finally at Luxor). Bond and Anya then take a train to Sardinia, before ending
up on the Liparus, which is somewhere in the Bay of Biscay.

The villain: Karl Stromberg, one of the richest men in the worl and the
head of the Stromberg Shipping Line. He is a recluse who is obsessed with the sea to the extent
that he lives in an impressive submersible structure called Atlantis near
Sardinia, which is also a marine research laboratory. Stromberg has an unusual
deformity in that he has webbed fingers, although this is not referred
to in the film except for the fact that he doesn't like shaking hands.
Stromberg's plan is to destroy civilisation and retreat to his new world under the
sea. To this end, he employed Dr Bechmann and Professor Markovitz to develop
a device that could track submarines by their wakes. He is then able to hijack
two ballistic missile submarines - HMS Ranger and the Soviet vessel Potempkin -
which he plans to use to destroy New York and Moscow.
However, his plan starts to go wrong when his traitorous assistant steals the plans
to the submarine tracking device. Of course, Stromberg is finally defeated and shot
by Bond.
Stromberg has two henchmen, the ineffectual Sandor and the steel-toothed Jaws.
The latter is a professional killer known to both MI6 and the KGB.

The girl: Major Anya Amasova, a Russian army officer who is also agent
Triple X in the KGB. She and Bond know of each other prior to the film. When
we first meet her, she has a lover in the shape of fellow agent Sergei Barzov,
but he is killed by Bond. Anya's drink of choice is Bacardi on the rocks. She
has been on a survival course in Siberia and a mission two years previously involved her
stealing the plans to the MI6 Lotus. She claims never to have failed on an assignment.

Bond's conquests: Probably three - the log cabin girl, one of Hosein's harem
and Anya.

Gadgets: Bond has a watch that receives ticker tape messages, a ski pole gun
and a microfilm viewer. He also uses a jet ski (a novel vehicle at the time, here
called a wet bike). We see Q testing a number of devices - a decapitating
tea tray, a spring mounted pouffe, a hookah-cum-machine gun and a camel saddle
that conceals a large spike. Anya has a cigarette that emits a knock out gas.
However, the main gadget is Bond's white Lotus Esprit (registration PPW 306R).
On land it appears poorly equipped, since we only see Bond use a mud spray from
behind the rear number plate. However, its main secret is that it is a submersible.
In the underwater environment it ejects anti-air missiles, harpoons, black oil
and mines.

Continuity:
Bond's wife, Tracy, is referred to for the first time since her appearance and subsequent death
in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. In an excellent
scene Bond and Anya are demonstrating how much they know about each
other. When Anya mentions that Bond has been married only once, Bond's
tone darkens and he is keen to finish the conversation.

Cameos: Michael G Wilson, later producer of the movies, makes the first of his regular
appearances in the movies - he is in the row behind Anya and Fekkesh at the pyramid show.

Oscars: "Nobody Does It Better" was nominated for Best Song in 1977
but lost to the eponymous song from You Light Up My Life. In
the same year, Marvin Hamlisch was nominated for Best Musical Score
and Ken Adam, Peter Lamont and Hugh Scaife were nominated for Art
Direction/Set Decoration. Both lost to Star Wars.

I didn't catch the name?:
Bond uses his trademark introduction when he meets Max Kalba. There is an unusual variation later
when Bond is undercover for his first meeting with
Stromberg and he introduces himself as "Stirling, Robert Stirling".

Vodka Martinis: Anya orders one for Bond in the Mojabe club when she
is proving how much she knows about him.

Gambling: None.

Bond bits: It is confirmed that Bond was recruited to MI6 from the Royal Navy.
He once served on the Ark Royal. We see Bond in naval uniform for only the second time
(after You Only Live Twice).
Bond was at Cambridge (as mentioned in You Only
Live Twice), where he knew Sheikh Hosein. When we first meet Bond in the movie
he is on a mission in Austria, although we don't learn what this entails, other
than attracting the attention of the KGB. When Bond visits Stromberg his cover
is a marine biologist called Robert Stirling. Anya poses as his wife.
Like Anya, Bond claims never to have failed on a mission.

Other trivia: The microfilm giving details of the submarine tracking device
was drafted in Italy. The Liparus tanker was launched 9 months prior to the film
and has a displacement of one million tons, making it the largest in the world
(after the Karl Marx). However, it has never been into port, giving Bond a clue
as to its true purpose.

Anything else?: This was the first Bond movie to be made in Dolby stereo.
The movie provides two musical links to the films of David Lean; Anya communicates with
her base using a musical box that plays the theme to Doctor Zhivago, and
later the theme to Lawrence Of Arabia is heard when Bond and Anya make
their way through the desert.
Whe Bond drives his Lotus out of the sea there are a number of amazed reactions
from on-lookers. One of these is a man who looks at the bottle he has just been
drinking from. This was an assistant director called Victor Tourjansky, who
would go on to appear in the same context in the next two films.
The end of The Spy Who Loved Me informs the viewer that the following
film is to be For Your Eyes Only; However, the success of Star
Wars encouraged the producers to attempt a science fiction film and
substitued Moonraker instead, since it was considered a more
appropriate title for the type of film that was intended.